People, Process and

Technology in CRM

Implementation

Minni Ranki

MASTER’S THESIS November 2019 Master’s Degree Programme in International Business Management

ABSTRACT

Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu Tampere University of Applied Sciences Master’s Degree Programme in International Business Management RANKI, MINNI: People, Process and Technology in CRM Implementation Master's thesis 56 pages, appendices 4 pages November 2019

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been a popular topic in the busi-ness world since the 1990’s. The academics have conducted a considerable amount of research related to CRM, software suppliers have various CRM sys-tems in the market and companies are willing to improve their performance to be more customer-centric. However, a common understanding of the term CRM is still lacking clarity. Additionally, a general model of how to implement CRM in an organization is missing from the literature. When implementing CRM three crucial components in an organization should be taken into account: people, process and technology. The organization should find the right mix of the components, usually divided as 50% to people, 30% to pro-cesses and 20% to technology. People of the organization need to be won over for the change as well as trained for the new ways to work, processes need cross-process collaboration and restructuring to be customer-centric, technology should be approachable, and to give in-time and reliable information, the availa-ble data sources need cleansing and integrating. This research was conducted as a qualitative, single-case study in a medium-sized manufacturing company that planned to take the CRM system in use. The aim of this research was to study the CRM phenomenon in general and the as-pects that the company should take into consideration in order to successfully implement CRM in an organization. The need to find a technological solution to improve the global sales team’s daily work was the starting point of the project and the needs for the tool were discussed in CRM team meetings in spring 2019. People, process and technology components were studied by interviewing the sales team and three employees related to the components, and the functions of the components were observed before the system implementation project started. Key findings were that people should be informed, trained and supported during the change process which essentially relates to CRM implementation. The pro-cesses need cross-process collaboration to be improved and the existing IT in-frastructure requires to be considered carefully as well. CRM implementation should always be seen as a holistic strategic approach, where people component has the biggest impact in terms of success in practice.

Key words: customer relationship management, CRM system, implementation

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CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 6

1.1 Background .................................................................................... 7

1.2 Research objectives and questions ................................................ 9

1.3 Methods ......................................................................................... 9

1.3.1 Data collection and analysis ............................................... 11

1.4 Structure of the study ................................................................... 12

2 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT ................................. 13

2.1 People .......................................................................................... 17

2.1.1 Organizational culture ......................................................... 18

2.1.2 Top-level executive support ................................................ 21

2.1.3 Aligning people ................................................................... 24

2.2 Process ........................................................................................ 26

2.2.1 Collaboration of the processes ........................................... 27

2.2.2 Restructuring the processes ............................................... 29

2.3 Technology .................................................................................. 30

2.3.1 Basis for the selection ........................................................ 31

2.3.2 Customer-related data ........................................................ 33

3 RESULTS ........................................................................................... 36

3.1 Results of the CRM team meetings .............................................. 36

3.2 Results of the sales team interview .............................................. 39

3.3 Results of the one-to-one interviews ............................................ 40

4 DISCUSSION ..................................................................................... 42

4.1 Getting people on board ............................................................... 42

4.1.1 The cultural aspect ............................................................. 43

4.2 Establishing the Processes .......................................................... 44

4.2.1 Sales .................................................................................. 46

4.2.2 Projects .............................................................................. 46

4.2.3 Customer Care ................................................................... 47

4.3 Focus on Technology ................................................................... 47

4.3.1 Preparing for the system implementation ........................... 48

5 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................. 51

5.1 Recommendations for future studies and improvements ............. 53

5.2 Personal reflections ...................................................................... 54

5.3 Limitations .................................................................................... 54

REFERENCES ........................................................................................ 55

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APPENDICES .......................................................................................... 57

Appendix 1. The Global Sales Team Group Interview Questions .... 57

Appendix 2. PEOPLE – Interview Questions ................................... 58

Appendix 3. PROCESS – Interview Questions ................................ 59

Appendix 4. TECHNOLOGY – Interview Questions ........................ 60

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ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS

B2B Business to Business

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CLV Customer Lifetime Value

CSF Critical Success Factor

CRM Customer Relationship Management

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

GDPR General Data Protection Regulation, EU 2016/679

IT Information Technology

KPI Key Performance Indicator

PLM Product Lifecycle Management

S/N Serial Number

SME Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

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1 INTRODUCTION

The business world has faced a rapid change due to technology and the Internet

economy over the past decades. Since the early 1990’s the expression Customer

Relationship Management (CRM) has been in use by both Information Technol-

ogy (IT) vendors and academics (Buttle & Maklan, 3, 2015), but despite the great

amount of published materials there is still lack of agreement what CRM actually

is (Payne & Frow, 2005). A concise definition of CRM is challenging to provide

due to its rapid and continuous evolution (Goldenberg, 3, 2010) but as the defini-

tion significantly affects the way an organization practices CRM the accurately

defined term is important and needed (Payne & Frow, 2005).

Although the precise definition is intervening from CRM literature, the companies

are increasingly putting effort and resources into CRM implementation. Mendoza

et al (2006) underline that there is no common model that guides companies

through the implementation of CRM. Each company should be considered as in-

dividuals in the manner of organizational culture, business processes and cus-

tomers. Additionally, a CRM implementation project should always be considered

as a project for change (Oksanen, 55, 2010). Therefore the need to study the

benefits and impacts of the CRM implementation for a particular organization is

important.

The aim of this study is to receive a holistic view of Customer Relationship Man-

agement and to research how to engage people to CRM, how the customer-re-

lated processes in the company should be integrated and to find ways to ensure

that the selected technology achieves the standards agreed in the early stage of

the project. Additionally, the most commonly known pitfalls related to CRM imple-

mentation will be studied. As a result, this thesis evaluates the people, process

and technology components in the case company and finally proposes further

development suggestions in respect of a continuous process in successfully im-

plemented CRM.

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1.1 Background

Objectives on implementing CRM depends strongly on a vision each organization

has on it. The vital aspect is to define the strategy and vision before the actual

implementation and to engage people in them.

The need for a CRM system that enables the sales team to improve their coop-

eration and to make the information of the sales process and of the customers

more transparent has been a topic of development project in the case company

for a good while. The company had done a couple of CRM system specification

and comparison works earlier, but the results had not been the kind that would

have led to the actual implementation of a system, which would have met both

the needs and the budget frame. The compared CRM systems were the market

leaders that usually are costly and heavily designed, and for a medium-sized

company, they were complicated to implement. The starting point of this thesis

was to find a CRM system that would fit into the budget and would meet the most

critical standards to help the sales team in their daily work.

The vision for having a CRM system in use was mainly to increase information

between the global sales team and to improve the daily work of the team with a

tool including all relevant customer-related data. The benefits for the manage-

ment from the CRM system were to be able to timely follow-up on business re-

sults and to report and forecast the sales. For the customers, the benefits from

CRM implementation would be seen as increased efficiency both in deeper

knowledge in customer’s needs and shorter reaction times.

The first task was to find the most cost-effective solution for the CRM system and

the software comparison work was done during spring in 2019. The CRM team,

which involved four management-level employees of the company and the re-

searcher, gathered seven times in order to discuss about the needs and stand-

ards for the system, as well as the starting point of how the people execute their

daily work, what processes should be involved to the development task and how

the available IT solutions could be helpful in order to reach the goals of the pro-

ject.

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The project team set up a budget roof and schedule for the upcoming implemen-

tation. The system comparison included eight different CRM solutions. During the

comparison, there were demo environments in use from six of the candidates and

they were compared with their functionality, approachability and security solu-

tions. The final round was between two of the most suitable candidates and at

the end of May 2019 the company decided to execute the CRM project with Zoho

CRM.

As the aim of the comparison task was to find a CRM system that would be im-

plemented, I as a researcher agreed with the company to focus my thesis espe-

cially on people and how to engage them in an upcoming new tool to use in their

daily work. During the spring I had already read about high levels of failure in

CRM implementations and was curious about how to avoid such to happen in this

particular case.

In May 2019 I presented the upcoming CRM system implementation to the global

sales team, which is the main end-user group of the CRM system. At the same

event, I made a short group interview with open-ended questions to the sales

team regarding their first impressions and possible resistance for the upcoming

implementation.

Before the implementation, I interviewed three of the employees regarding peo-

ple, process and technology in the case company. The interviews were con-

ducted as one-to-one interviews with open-ended questions during July-August

2019.

The case company decided to start the CRM system implementation project at

the end of September 2019. For the implementation project, the company de-

cided to use an external CRM expert to help with the software build-up and cus-

tomization. The construction work, customization and data gathering from differ-

ent kinds of data sources were the main tasks during the project. Finally, the full

use of the system started in November 2019 with the end-user training.

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1.2 Research objectives and questions

This study aims for a deeper understanding of CRM implementation and the chal-

lenges a company may face during the process. To achieve a holistic view of

implementing CRM in an organization and to have knowledge of the possible

pitfalls there might be, the first research question is:

“What are the needed actions and decisions before implementing CRM in an or-

ganization?”

Because the CRM implementation should be considered holistically including the

key components the implementation affects, the second research question is:

“How to integrate people, process and technology in CRM implementation?”

1.3 Methods

FIGURE 1. Method Map and the Selected Research Methods. University of

Jyväskylä, 2010.

This research is an empirical, qualitative study that is a mix of case study and

action research. The research methods are shown in the above figure 1. What

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characterizes qualitative research is that it is a way to explore, describe or explain

a social phenomenon, a way to examine what meanings people attribute from

certain activities, situations or events (Leavy, 2, 2014). Qualitative researchers

employ five main methods in their work: observation, interviewing, ethnographic

fieldwork, discourse analysis and textual analysis (Travers, 2, 2001). Even

though qualitative research prior structuring of a research design is not that com-

mon than in quantitative research, it is still preferable to make an early decision

of the preferred methods in qualitative research as well (Silverman, 110, 2005).

Case study research is a way to describe and comprehend a certain situation or

event with an in-depth view in a specific socio-political context. Case study re-

search is not having specified methodologies or perspectives as it is singular and

limited to a particular case. Case study research can conduct both quantitative

and qualitative methods and even both of them as mixed methods. The use of

the methods depends on which is the best way of providing evidence to inform

the issues the particular case is exploring. (Leavy, 455, 457-458, 2014)

According to Farquhar (chapter 5, 2012) case studies can combine primary and

secondary data sources. The primary data are fresh data collected specifically

for the research project by the researcher. In qualitative research, the primary

data can be e.g. interviews (face to face, e-mail, phone), participant observation

or diaries. The secondary data can consist e.g. of minutes of meetings, internal

reports or market research reports.

Action research belongs to the group of self-directed methodologies that focus

on improving an existing activity (Routio, 2007). According to Routio active re-

search is an effective way to handle complicated problems as the objective is to

encourage, develop and carry out suggestions from the employees of the organ-

ization. It is good to remember that action research is not only a development

project but a collective learning process as well. The repetitive cycle of action

research after Routio is:

The status quo of the researched group is the starting point as the action

research cannot be based only on theoretical assumptions.

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Evaluation of the results. What is the original purpose of the action and are

there any drawbacks?

Reflection. Why the process now is what it is and is there any other ways

to work?

Abstraction. A theoretical model of original activity including its essential

functions, strengths and weaknesses.

Planning changes to the original mode of action to which the theoretical

model provides the foundations.

According to the University of Jyväskylä (2010), action research is based on prob-

lems, problem solving and community. The researcher should actively participate

in the practices of the community to research the phenomenon. The starting point

is practical action and the data will be provided by recorded observations.

1.3.1 Data collection and analysis

The aim of the study is to gain a holistic view of CRM and to understand the

possible pitfalls during the CRM implementation. The research started with ana-

lysing the starting point for the development work and with CRM system compar-

ison, but after agreeing with the case company that the goal was to have the

selected system in actual use, the aim of the study started to focus on CRM im-

plementation. Soon after the focus changed I realized that the successful imple-

mentation of CRM is more or less a project for change, in other words about

people rather than technology. The CRM literature also justified this understand-

ing and after studying the theory I gained a holistic view of the three main com-

ponents of CRM: people, process and technology, where people component usu-

ally takes 50% of the success, process 30% and technology 20%. Literature by

Goldenberg (2010), Wagner & Zubey (2007), Raab et al (2008) and Chen & Po-

povich (2003) strengthened this view.

The primary data of this thesis consists of the minutes of CRM team meetings

from spring 2019 that have been documented by me. In those meetings, the start-

ing point was discussed together with the desirable outcomes. I also interviewed

three employees of the case company regarding people of the organization, cus-

tomer-related processes, and technology from the data gathering and selected

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CRM software point of view. The purpose of the interviews was to study the case

company in the means of culture and change, the current status of customer-

interfaced processes and the different informational resources regarding data

gathering. The interviews were kept in July-August 2019 and I have recorded the

interviews as notes. The interview questions can be found from the appendices

2-4.

After the system selection, I also had a group interview with the global sales team

who are the end-users of the CRM system. The purpose of the interview was to

firstly introduce the upcoming system implementation and secondly gain the first

impressions and possible challenges of the upcoming change from the end-us-

ers. The group interview has been recorded as notes as well and the questions

are listed in appendix 1.

1.4 Structure of the study

This thesis consists of a first introduction chapter where the study background

and purpose, objectives, methods and structure are presented. The second chap-

ter is introducing the CRM theory and the theoretical framework of the study. In

the third chapter, I will present the research results based on the gathered data.

The fourth chapter presents a discussion based on the research results. The final

chapter is proposing recommendations and conclusions for further development

together with personal reflections and the limitations of the study.

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2 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a widely known term in the busi-

ness world, but CRM can be understood differently in different parts of the organ-

ization. Definitions of CRM vary according to the emphasis of the point where it

is examined. Information technology (IT) vendors usually use the term to describe

different kinds of software solutions that help companies with marketing, selling

and providing service (Buttle & Maklan, 3, 2015). Also, Peppers & Rogers (5,

2011) state that to some executives CRM is a technology that enables the com-

pany to better customer service with customer-related information.

The technology part of CRM is indeed empowering. While the history of sales-

people have been that the efficient salesperson knows his customers and their

needs by heart, and in case of leaving a company the whole information would

be lost, CRM software enables companies to keep the customer history details in

house. CRM software solutions are keeping the needed information easily and

quickly available to marketers, sales and service personnel. However, according

to Peppers & Rogers (17-18, 2011), the technology itself doesn’t make a com-

pany customer-centric. The technology provides the customer’s perspective,

which the company should use as a competitive advantage.

Also, the management philosophy may be in the focus on how to understand

CRM. According to Wagner & Zubey (4, 2007), many people consider CRM to be

a direction with attention to the customer. The problem of understanding CRM

completely is that the definitions vary and the phenomenon itself is very com-

plexed. To succeed in CRM implementation in an organization, it is important to

gain a holistic view of CRM which includes all relevant components that are in-

cluded in the continuous process of managing customer relationships. In the fol-

lowing figure 2 can be seen the difference between the narrow and broad defini-

tion of CRM by Payne & Frow (2005).

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FIGURE 2. The CRM Continuum. (Payne & Frow, 2005)

According to Payne & Frow (2005), the meaning of CRM is not only trivial, in-

stead, it may affect the whole success of CRM implementation in an organization.

In their CRM continuum framework, they show the three perspectives by which

CRM can be defined: narrowly as a technological solution, broader customer-

oriented technology and holistic customer-centric strategy to create shareholder

value. The organizations would benefit from adopting a strategic CRM definition

including a vision for understanding customer value in a multichannel environ-

ment, using information management and CRM applications and having high-

level operations and services.

CRM system market is a significantly growing business with a variety of options

for sales, marketing, customer service, and overall managing customer-related

information. At the same time when suppliers are offering their help and vision to

customer-related challenges, the effects of CRM implementation failures have

received considerable attention from the researchers. For example, Chen & Po-

povich (2003) underlines the lack of a thorough understanding of CRM that re-

sults in the CRM project failure. According to Kale (2004), the estimates of failed

CRM projects vary from 60% to 80%. Raab et al. (118, 2008) have listed the most

often mentioned reasons for such failure that are:

ineffective change management

lack of top-level executive support

lack of customer vision

lack of understanding of customer lifetime value

lack of cross-functional terms in implementation/planning

seeing CRM purely as technology

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long and over-budget implementation

underestimating difficulties in data mining and data integration

According to Goldenberg (11-12, 2008) together with over empathized technol-

ogy component there are several other challenges organizations face while im-

plementing CRM. The challenges are lack of a sales, marketing and customer

service strategy, lack of corporate commitment, internal politics, lack of proper

training, lack of know-how and resistance by system users. Payne and Frow

(2005) propose in their article that any organization implementing CRM should

position CRM in the broad strategic context.

Buttle & Maklan (4, 2015) conceive CRM to have three main forms: strategic,

operational and analytical. The three forms help to resolve the debate between

IT and management schools as all of the forms include both the technological

and strategic characteristics. Strategic CRM focuses on winning and keeping

profitable customers, operational CRM puts the effort for the automation of cus-

tomer-centric processes and analytical CRM uses the customer-related data for

receiving an insight for strategic or tactical purposes.

According to Goldenberg (21, 2008), CRM is including three crucial components,

which need to be seamlessly integrated in order to have CRM successfully im-

plemented. Those three components are people, process and technology, and

all of the three have their challenges to be taken into account. The organizations

implementing CRM should find the right mix of the components, which usually is

50 percent for people, 30 percent for process and 20 percent for technology. The

following figure 3 is inspired by the approach of Goldenberg.

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FIGURE 3. An effective mix of people, process and technology in CRM. Inspired

by Goldenberg (2008).

Raab et al. (8, 2008) have similar, yet a little different approach to CRM. In the

following figure 4 can be seen the three pillars and process of CRM, personnel,

technology and organization, which all are part of an integrated, overall concept

of CRM.

FIGURE 4. The pillars and process of Customer Relationship Management.

(Raab et al, 8, 2008)

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Raab et al. (7, 2008) states that an integral assessment combining the technical

and human perspectives and including the essential appearance of the organiza-

tional structure is the only way to make the CRM implementation successful.

Even the best technological solution would be useless without the people using

it. Also, Mendoza et al. (2007) state that the CRM systems must be considered

as a key component – not the only component – of the operation of a CRM strat-

egy. In their study, they proposed a critical success factor (CSF) model for a CRM

strategy which covered three key aspects: the processes, the human factor (peo-

ple) and the technology. In order to achieve the CRM objective successfully there

is the necessity of an integrated and balanced approach to these key aspects.

Following the approach of Goldenberg (2008), Raab et al. (2008) and Wagner &

Zubey (2007) the research will now focus on how the people, process and tech-

nology factors should be taken into account in CRM implementation.

2.1 People

The people component accounts for 50% of the overall success of CRM imple-

mentation because of the natural habit to resist the change. For any organization

mastering the people component is often the most difficult challenge in CRM im-

plementation (Goldenberg, 29, 33, 187, 2008). Mendoza et al. (2007) state it is

important to involve people with the CRM strategy and motivate them to reach

the objectives. The CRM strategy has a strong impact on employees as it

changes the way they have worked before the implementation. Selling and con-

vincing the employees of the benefits and results of the CRM strategy is the role

of the top management.

As stated earlier, according to Oksanen (55, 2010), the CRM implementation pro-

ject is always a project for change. The change related to the CRM system im-

plementation is only one part of a change in the business in question. The CRM

implementation affects three components: the organization, the management and

the end-users of the system.

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According to Paton & McCalman (382, 2008), managing change is always about

managing people. People want and need to grow, and with that personal growth,

the organizational performance is also improved. When designing change in the

organization, the key to success is to involve the people in the process in the

beginning. By openness, communication, involvement, and empowerment can

be gained commitment and ownership of the change process by all. Raab et al.

(119, 2008) states that the change management strategy should be focused on

both cultural and technological change, which should be seen as a primary im-

plementation issue at the corporate level.

2.1.1 Organizational culture

According to Hofstede & Hofstede (2005, 35), organizational culture has been a

hot topic in the management literature from the beginning of the 1980’s, when

authors started to make a claim of an “excellence” of an organization fashionable.

That type of organization contains the common ways how its members have

learned to act, think and feel. The way how an organizational culture differs from

a national one is that its members did not grow up in it. They continue (284), that

the national culture, containing the basic values, is acquired during the first ten

years of people’s lives, while organizational culture, containing the organization’s

practices, is acquired when entering a work organization as an adult and having

the basic values firmly in place already.

CRM leaders need to be sensitive to the organizational culture in which they plan

to implement CRM. Buttle & Maklan (369, 2015) state that organizational culture

comprises widely shared and strongly held values. Those values reflect in indi-

vidual and interpersonal behaviour and the organizational culture affects the busi-

ness performance in its entirety. According to Raab et al. (119, 2008), one cultural

factor is the level of resistance to something new or innovative by some employ-

ees.

According to Mendoza et al (2007), CRM strategy means a change in culture and

switching from a product-oriented approach to a customer-oriented approach.

The change is needed in attitude within the organization and the employees, as

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the CRM strategy affects the way things have been done to the point of imple-

mentation. The customer-centric organizational system associates positively with

CRM capabilities, sates Wang & Feng (2012). That is more likely to be achieved

when the organization structures itself around customer groups and the employ-

ees are awarded for their high CRM-related performance.

Buttle & Maklan also refers to the Competing Values Model of organizational cul-

ture by Cameron & Quinn (2011). The cultural change may need adjusting, for

example, the organization’s structure, systems strategy and leadership style. As

the culture of the organization determines the success of CRM implementation,

it is relevant to mirror the organizational culture in question to the Competing Val-

ues Model, which can be seen in the following figure 5.

FIGURE 5. The Competing Values Model of organizational culture. (Cameron &

Quinn, chapter 3, 2011)

The Competing Values Model includes two dimensions. The first dimension dif-

ferentiates effectiveness criteria that emphasize flexibility from criteria that em-

phasize stability. The flexible organizations are viewed effectively if they are

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changing, this means neither the products nor the organizational structure stays

the same very long. Stable organizations, on the contrary, are characterized by

longevity in both design and outputs. The second dimension differentiates effec-

tiveness criteria that emphasize an internal orientation from criteria that empha-

size an external orientation. Some organizations having harmonious internal

characteristics are viewed effective, while the others are judged to be effective if

they interact or compete with others outside their boundaries. (Cameron & Quinn,

chapter 3, 2011)

The two dimensions form four quadrants representing organizational effective-

ness indicators: clan (collaborate), adhocracy (create), hierarchy (control) and

market (compete). Those indicators show what people value about an organiza-

tion’s performance and additionally they define the core values on which organi-

zation makes the judgements. (Cameron & Quinn, chapter 3, 2011) Buttle & Mak-

lan (369, 2015) states that with CRM success adhocracy organizations show the

strongest association. Adhocracy in an organization includes characteristics such

as flexibility, entrepreneurship and external orientation.

Hofstede & Hofstede (292, 2005) produced six dimensions of organizational cul-

tures from their IRIC cross-organizational study and the dimensions have both

similarities as well as differences to the Competing Values Model. Those six di-

mensions are:

1. Process oriented versus results oriented

2. Employee oriented versus job oriented

3. Parochial versus professional

4. Open system versus closed system

5. Loose control versus tight control

6. Normative versus pragmatic

The dimensions of organizational cultures include labels that are not “good” or

“bad” and the order of the dimensions is not in rank order. The way a dimension

should be interpreted depends only on where the managing directors want the

organization to go. (Hofstede & Hofstede, 292, 2005)

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The way organizations react to the change reflects from the organizational cul-

ture. Changing the tradition from separate goals and objectives in different de-

partments to the focus on customer needs the commitment from management.

Cultural change and the participation of all employees within the organization are

needed when re-engineering a customer-centric business model. CRM imple-

mentation might require some significant changes in jobs. The employees need

to understand the purpose and changes that CRM will bring and therefore CRM

initiatives need vision and effective communication by the executives reaching all

levels of employees. (Chen & Popovich, 2003)

According to Cameron & Green (307, 2009), a change in information-sharing

habits should be addressed as a cultural change. This is because the introduction

of new IT systems alone will not achieve change in behaviour, which strongly

relates to the way people share information. The organizational strategy is hard

to align with IT strategy but leaving it undone the two strategies may drift apart

and cause major problems. This is where business managers and IT managers

should improve communication and understanding between each other in order

to avoid decoupling strategy and IT decision making.

2.1.2 Top-level executive support

Goldenberg (33, 2008) states that executive support is the single most important

success factor in CRM implementation. The weak or mediocre executive support

eventually leads the CRM initiative to failure. The lack of support may arise from

over empathizing the technology component or minor commitment to the initia-

tive. In addition, executives should carefully consider the change included in the

CRM implementation (Oksanen, 61, 2010). Assuming the implementation to be

done quick, easy and by a command is not the way to reach for the CRM objec-

tives.

Also, Chen & Popovich (2003) names the top management support and commit-

ment to CRM to be the most important factor throughout the CRM implementa-

tion. Setting the stage in CRM initiatives for leadership, strategic direction, and

business goals is the task for top management to do. If the senior management

is lacking in believing in re-engineering a customer-centric business model there

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is no reason for starting a CRM project in the first place. CRM implementation

usually results in changes in corporate culture.

The key factors in executive support in change is genuine and participative com-

munication with the employees. The changes required in order to achieve the

goals during the implementation process are merely understandable when the

atmosphere in the organization is cooperative. However, the commitment of the

executives needs to be visible and assertive. The goals of the project should be

clear and requirements the same for everyone. (Oksanen, 62, 2010)

The issues related to managing people in CRM implementation are for example

increased workload caused by the implementation. Even though the impact of the

implementation can be felt throughout the organization, it is particularly sales that

CRM affects the most (Johnston & Marshall, 101, 2016). The management

should also be sensitive to the need for thorough training and clear communica-

tion stating the benefits and pitfalls of the system (Johnston & Marshall, 104,

2016).

Cameron & Green (116, 2009) underline that the change process should be seen

as a continuous cycle rather than as a linear development. They refer to John

Kotter’s (1995) eight-step model that derived from analysing 100 different organ-

izations going through change. Also, Oksanen (67, 2010), cites Kotter’s eight-

step model in terms of to be successful in the CRM project, as the change devel-

opment and empowerment should be consciously driven by the top management.

The repeatedly referred Kotter’s eight-step model includes the following steps:

1. Establish a sense of urgency

2. Form a powerful guiding coalition

3. Create a vision

4. Communicate the vision

5. Empower others to act on the vision

6. Plan for and create short-term wins

7. Consolidate improvements and produce still more change

8. Institutionalize new approaches

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Cameron & Green (116, 2009) have their own model that emphasizes the man-

agement’s attention to be the most important aspect through all phases of the

change process. The following figure 6 presents the cycle of change that is based

on their experience of change but has similarities with Kotter’s eight-step model.

FIGURE 6. Cycle of change. (Cameron & Green, 116, 2009)

Overall, the success of CRM requires management to influence the organiza-

tional culture, say Iriana et al (2013). In addition to IT project CRM investments

should be seen as change management projects as well, and this may involve

changes in organizational leadership towards emphasizing creativity and innova-

tion and valuing risk-taking. Those organizations usually deliver good outcomes

from CRM technology investments.

24

2.1.3 Aligning people

Buttle & Maklan (366, 2015) emphasize the importance of governance structure

in CRM projects. As the projects are designed and implemented by people, the

project roles and responsibilities need to be properly defined and allocated. Buttle

& Maklan have named the roles to be the programme director (PD), who’s in

charge of ensuring that the project deliverables are achieved. PD usually has a

duplex role as he or she is part of both steering committee and programme teams.

The steering committee makes policy decisions and the programme team is com-

posed of representatives from the major stakeholders. Additionally there most

often is external resources such as CRM consultant working with the steering

committee and a systems implementer to ensure that the system is properly im-

plemented.

Oksanen (97-99, 2010) claims that failed resourcing in the implementation project

eventually leads to CRM failure as well. Underestimating the resources results in

a lack of professionality in the project team, on the contrary too big of a team

might end up only to argue in detail instead of getting things done. The problem

of resourcing is that usually, the most talented and visionary people are busy with

other important issues, on the other hand, there are usually just a few of them. In

the following table 1, are the central roles and responsibilities after Oksanen.

Role Responsibilities

CRM owner CRM vision developer. Responsible for the system and the devel-

opment as a whole.

Project manager Responsible for implementing the project on a daily basis. The

leader of the project.

Master user Day-to-day responsibility for the system and support after the pro-

ject. Puts the CRM vision into practice.

Project team Design, definition and testing work together with the project man-

ager. Usually the key user group.

Steering team Monitoring and follow-up. The management team of the project.

Key user Gives local support and works as a right hand for master

user.

TABLE 1. CRM project roles and responsibilities. After Oksanen (99, 2010)

25

In their study Chen & Popovich (2003) state that the CRM projects require full-

time attention. The project team should include representatives from sales, mar-

keting, manufacturing, IT and customer service. The team will need support from

both top management and from the project manager as well, whose responsibility

is to persuade top management for continuous change efforts.

User acceptance in its entity is one of the key factors to a successful CRM imple-

mentation (Wagner & Zubey, 141, 2007). Also, Buttle & Maklan (370, 2015) states

the buy-in for the CRM project’s goals and vision is needed. The buy-in can ap-

pear in two ways: intellectually or emotionally. Intellectual buy-in means that the

people know the justification for the change and they know what has to be

changed as well. Emotional buy-in, on the other hand, includes genuine enthusi-

asm about the change. The weak links in the manner of change are the most

problematic individuals in CRM implementation, as they are neither emotionally

nor intellectually committed to the project.

The main issue related to end-users in CRM system implementation is the in-

creased workload. The usage of such systems is rarely fun or interesting and the

impact of not using it is not the end of anything on a bigger scale. If the system

usage is not clearly followed and required by the management, it is rather easy

to postpone the bookings completely. The root cause for the non-usage is almost

always resistance to change. (Oksanen, 70, 2010)

The end-users will also need proper training in the system use. According to

Goldenberg (65-67, 2008), the importance of training should never be underesti-

mated. Goldenberg has named training to include four common formats: initial

user training, training the trainer, system administrator training and remedial train-

ing. Initial user training should include hands-on training where the instructor ex-

plains a function and the participants perform the same on their PC’s. Training

the trainer is a way for internal trainers to learn how to use the system and teach

others simultaneously. System administrator training is as well hands-on training

but in a deeper sense as the assigned system administrator will be performing

system maintenance on a daily basis. Remedial training will be needed within six

26

months after the system implementation due to for example new systems re-

leases including new functions and features.

Additionally, it is important to take into account that when implementing CRM

strategy companies need to understand that switching to a customer-oriented

approach has a strong impact on employees, Mendoza et al (2007) underlines.

The technology should only be used as a complementary tool to achieve the pro-

posed goals. The most important thing is to communicate and follow-up on the

desired objectives with the employees. Even with the best definitions of pro-

cesses and IT solutions, in any business strategy, the people component has a

determining effect.

Even though it is important to understand how technology is used and accepted

by the personnel, B2B companies benefit more from understanding how techno-

logical solutions improve productivity, state Rodriguez & Honeycutt (2011). Col-

laboration with customers and colleagues through CRM utilization leads to higher

performance with buyers.

2.2 Process

One of the misunderstandings related to CRM is that it is considered to be a

marketing process only (Buttle & Maklan, 14, 2015). CRM is an enterprise-wide

customer-centric business model that needs redesigning core business pro-

cesses continuously (Chen & Popovich, 2003). After Buttle & Maklan (16, 2015),

CRM attributes can be integrated into the following definition:

“CRM is the core business strategy that integrates internal processes

and functions, and external networks, to create and deliver value to

targeted customers at a profit. It is grounded on high-quality cus-

tomer-related data and enabled by information technology.”

The definition by Buttle & Maklan denotes that CRM is not only about IT and that

the CRM strategy allows departments within businesses to integrate and learn

from each other. According to Tayob (2013), the companies are more apt to

27

succeed in business performance when they are able to provide an optimal cus-

tomer experience through a collaboration of marketing, sales, service and sup-

port. In order to achieve optimal results in agile selling, the companies should

increasingly focus on e.g. integrating sales, marketing and service and improving

the customer experience at each touchpoint.

Kale (2004) states that any company adopting CRM needs to create or re-engi-

neer processes for creating customer insight and to taking advantage of it during

customer interactions. According to Peppers & Rogers (417, 2011), an enter-

prise-wide cross-selling is not possible if the CRM project is limited to one division

and database only. They continue that especially in B2B companies that make

improvements for being more customer-oriented there in many cases is restruc-

turing the sales force in order to ensure sales of different products to the same

customer. After the restructuring, these activities also appear more rational to the

customers themselves.

2.2.1 Collaboration of the processes

Raab et al. (35, 2008) make a broad view of customer-related processes. They

suggest that every customer-oriented organizational structure requires the inte-

gration of all units involved. They continue (118, 2008) that the organizations that

have successfully implemented CRM are the ones that have in an early stage of

the process included a broad, cross-functional collaboration in their businesses.

In the following figure 7 after Simon & Homburg (21, 1998) represented by Raab

et al. (35, 2008) can be seen that customer-oriented behaviour is possible in

every link in the chain. Chen & Popovich (2003) states that the CRM applications

link the front office and back-office functions with the customer interfaces, and

after Raab et al (35, 2008) every time necessary for the responsible employee

the information about customers, prices and products should be obtainable.

28

FIGURE 7. Possible contributions of value creation to customer satisfaction (Si-

mon & Homburg, 21, 1998) (Raab et al. 35, 2008)

The importance of visible and available cross-functional information of customer

activity is widely stated within the CRM research. Peppers & Rogers (362, 2011)

cite Jim Goodnight, founder of SAS institute, who states that customer-centric

strategies need the customer activity to be made visible across multiple channels

and business units. The importance of efficient collaboration with internal stake-

holders is a challenge faced by sales professionals (Rodriguez & Honeycutt,

2011). They continue that developing a customer-focused organization critically

needs coordination between functional departments. In their article Rodriguez &

Honeycutt present three hypotheses regarding the relationship between CRM

and internal collaboration as follows:

Utilization of CRM increases the ability to collaborate internally with peers

and management

Collaboration positively mediates increased performance with customers

Collaboration positively mediates increased sales process effectiveness

According to Chen & Popovich (2003), the CRM business strategy maximize the

profitability of customer interactions in marketing, sales, R&D, operations, fi-

nance, customer service, human resources, IT as well as the Internet. CRM en-

compasses the whole organization with front-office functions, such as sales mar-

keting and customer service, together with back-office, e.g. operations and finan-

cial. The customer touchpoints relate with both front- and back-office functions

which is demonstrated in the following figure 8.

29

FIGURE 8. CRM applications, supported by ERP/data warehouse, link front- and

back-office functions. (Chen & Popovich, 2003)

The CRM benefits according to Chen & Popovich (2003) can be seen in customer

data sharing throughout the organization, which results in e.g. an integrated and

complete view of the customer, superior levels of customer service, improved

targeting to segments and opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling. Besides

the CRM technology is beneficial for example in constructing metrics, attracting

existing and new customers through personalized communication and targeting,

and integrating customer and supplier relationships.

According to Kale (2004), not all the processes matter equally to the customer.

However, all of the processes should support the customer value proposition.

When starting a CRM project the companies should review and highlight the pro-

cesses that could be performed better with the use of particular software. This

will eventually lead to change management and training for the people performing

the restructured processes.

2.2.2 Restructuring the processes

Tayob (2013) states that in today’s business environment is important to provide

a differentiated and consistent experience for the customers. That requires an

30

agile selling approach that uses all channels and enterprise assets to the cus-

tomer. This is especially needed because of the customers’ habits to constantly

move and be more informed and connected than ever. According to Rodriguez &

Honeycutt (2011) sales cycles can be decreased and customer expectations can

be more effectively met by understanding the customer and their needs across

all responsible areas of the company.

Restructuring the processes to be more customer-centric needs the change in

culture within company staff and needs effective change management, commu-

nication and follow-up, feedback and leadership (Mendoza et al, 2007). In order

to provide the customers consistent, knowledgeable and high-quality service the

companies must consider CRM implementation from every touchpoint they have

with the customers (King, 2003).

Wang & Feng (2012) state in their study that CRM projects require firms to be

customer-oriented in order to be successfully implemented. Customer orientation

needs companies to prioritize customers’ interests as the customer orientation

may strengthen their CRM capabilities and improve overall performance. The ef-

fectiveness of CRM activities also require CRM to be effectively integrated with

the company’s existing processes and structures. When the customer-oriented

organizational system is effectively executed it enables companies to initiate

sharing of customer information, overcoming the functional barriers and dedicat-

ing to customer relationship retention and upgrading.

2.3 Technology

Seeing CRM purely as technology is the most common pitfall of CRM implemen-

tation (Raab et al, 122, 2008). According to Buttle & Maklan (14, 2015), a suc-

cessful CRM implementation includes people to develop and implement the pro-

cesses that are enabled by technology. IT is definitely a part of many CRM strat-

egies, but it is good to keep in mind that not all of the CRM projects involve IT

investments. The high failure level in CRM implementation can result from the

confusion about what constitutes CRM and the definition significantly affects the

way an organization practices CRM (Payne & Frow, 2005).

31

Goldenberg (149, 2008) states that in any CRM implementation the technology

component can be overwhelming due to two primary issues: the companies need

to deal with both software vendors and the in-time technology trends. This is be-

cause even though the CRM technologies usually address all the requirements

companies have, the vendors are not able to keep the promises of the solutions

in practice in every business case. Additionally increased CRM software solutions

in the marketplace challenge companies to stay on top of technology trends. De-

spite the availability of new technology, the companies should consider the most

suitable solution to impact both the CRM industry’s future and the company’s own

CRM efforts.

The implementation of a CRM system often means that customer-related data

are shared throughout the organization, not the marketing department alone.

CRM relates to three specific processes particularly: marketing, sales and cus-

tomer service (Wagner & Zubey, 11, 2007), but after Kale (2004) CRM is involving

all the processes that take place between the company and its customers. The

utilization of the CRM system is in an important role in gathering buyer information

across functional areas of the firm and in spreading the customer knowledge

throughout the organization (Rodriguez & Honeycutt, 2011).

Wang & Feng (2012) describe the CRM solution to be deployed for better man-

aging customer relationships and eventually having a positive association with

CRM capabilities. The systems usually include front-office applications that sup-

port sales, marketing and service, and back-office applications that integrate and

analyse customer-related data. Rodriguez & Honeycutt (2011) found in their

study that usage of a CRM system both increased the internal collaboration and

job function performance related to sales.

2.3.1 Basis for the selection

Selecting the right CRM software that meets the needs of the organization is a

task that should be considered carefully. Raab et al (122, 2008) underline that

executives should remember that CRM technology is not a panacea for inefficient

32

business activities. Therefore the needs of the entire organization should be un-

derstood and the cross-functional representation should be achieved as early as

possible before choosing the CRM software.

Oksanen (76, 2010) points out that as many of the CRM technologies are off-the-

shelf solutions, too broad of a requirement definition by the customer may be a

waste of time. The architecture of the software is usually a take it or leave it –type

of solution and most often cannot be changed by a single customer. The more

important task before CRM software decision is to specify the objectives and re-

quirements for the CRM project itself. The following figure 9 inspired by Oksanen

(77, 2010) illustrates the process of specifying those objectives and require-

ments.

FIGURE 9. The Process for Specifying CRM Objectives and Requirements. In-

spired by Oksanen (77, 2010) and Buttle & Maklan (363, 2015).

For the CRM technology itself, there should be stated some requirements (Raab

et al, 122, 2008), even though the software architecture is ready-made by the

vendor (Oksanen, 76, 2010). Raab et al continue that the requirements should

include functional aspects, integration requirements with the existing company

technologies and budgetary requirements. According to Payne & Frow (2005)

CRM vendors have created many new products for comprehensive and scalable

33

options, but even though the vendors claim to be “complete CRM solution provid-

ers”, only a few of them can provide full functionality that CRM business strategy

requires.

Having the business requirements for the software is not enough information for

starting evaluating CRM technologies but there should be functional require-

ments listed as well. The business requirements describe the customer-oriented

issues CRM must solve and the functional requirements describe how to solve

them. The technology choices will become much clearer after the functional re-

quirements have been defined. (Dyché, chapter 8, 2001)

Buttle & Maklan (376, 2015) state that there are a huge amount of software ap-

plications that can be placed under the topic of CRM. The next step of the deci-

sion making is to create a list of vendors that match the requirements determined

by the organization in the earlier phase (Raab et al, 123, 2008). In this phase, it

is good to notice there is a need for making a decision regarding both software

application and supplier or consultant (Oksanen, 183-186, 2010). However, the

companies should be aware that the businesses vary sometimes significantly and

the CRM system should not be based on other businesses’ success (King, 2003).

The tools should always be evaluated against the particular business require-

ments in question.

2.3.2 Customer-related data

Buttle & Maklan (289, 2015) underline that for the execution of CRM strategy the

customer-related databases are the foundation. Companies may have several

customer-related databases that serve different operational purposes. According

to Wagner & Zubey (57, 2007), the companies should realize that as data in CRM

may be viewed by many different workers, the customer should ideally be at the

centre of any CRM system. At the operational level, the employees interact with

the customers repeatedly and they need to have access to different kinds of his-

torical details. The managerial level requires access to certain key performance

indicators (KPI) in order to monitor their progress in achieving specific goals. Fi-

nally, at the strategic level that includes senior managers, access to both of the

34

previously mentioned data in order to examine purchasing trends, long-terms re-

lationships and patterns is required.

Buttle & Maklan (290-291), 2015) continue that the databases may be in a struc-

tured or unstructured form. Most of the data companies have in their databases

are structured, which means the data structure is provided by a pre-defined model

that specifies how the data should be stored in each field, how that data should

be recorded and how the fields relate to each other. By comparison, unstructured

data can be textual or non-textual files that do not fit a pre-defined data model.

The unstructured data companies may have for example in e-mails, Word- or

PDF-documents, instant messages or recorded telephone calls.

Data integrity is a core component of every successful CRM project and it con-

sists of two processes: data cleansing and data management (Goldenberg, 101,

2008). Goldenberg continues, that it is vital for data integrity to include how the

data inventory, development and cleansing is currently done and also to develop

processes to maintain, change and enhance the quality of data. Buttle & Maklan

(303, 2015) states that the data integration requires that the customer’s identity

should be traceable in all interactions regardless of the database and any anom-

alies between the records should be identified and resolved.

According to Mendoza et al (2007), companies need to consider all the isolated

systems that have information about the customers already. One of the greatest

challenges is to understand the need to integrate the applications in order to

gather all the information related to the customer. Wagner & Zubey (72, 2007)

continue that the data may be duplicate depending on the record and the slight

differences in the data.

The problem with customer-related data is that the more there is information

available, the less qualified the data is (Oksanen, 162, 2010). Oksanen continues

that the lack of data quality usually is due to unstructured ways to use the data

as well as the rush in the business environment which increases the challenges

in instructing the use too. According to Wagner & Zubey (53, 2007), there are

eight possible characteristics of good information and they include:

35

Timeliness

Economic value

Relevance

Accuracy

Minimal redundancy

Consistency

Completeness

Privacy

Goldenberg (101, 2008) gives a broad justification for data integrity. First of all

the quality data should be seen as a strategic asset and the accuracy of data will

affect a consistent and error-free way to enhance the customer experience. With

data inventory, the company will understand which data may be used for the CRM

system. By cleansing and integrating data it is possible to decrease the costs

caused by storing the same data in several databases as well as by maintaining

a data storage infrastructure. Quality data helps to provide more accurate reports

to the personnel within customer interactions too.

Wagner & Zubey (73, 2007) state that as the importance of customer data con-

tinues to grow, simultaneously the need to clean up the data will continue to grow.

The companies may be reluctant for data cleansing and integration due to the

need for resources – going through the records is both time consuming and ex-

pensive. However, the impact on the customers should be seen more important

than using the resources, as dirty customer-related data may lead to bad infor-

mation towards the customers and eventually the bad customer experience.

According to Alshawi et al (2011), the CRM system is built upon the foundation

of a complete view of a customer and CRM’s lifeblood is the ability to harness the

knowledge at the right time, in the right format to the right person. Poor data

quality in e.g. key business entities identifiers such as customers, products and

sales attributes can cause major problems and have a severe impact on the per-

formance of an organization overall.

36

3 RESULTS

This chapter is introducing the results of the action research case study of people,

process and technology in CRM implementation in the case company. The case

study started in spring 2019 and ended in fall when the selected CRM system

was implemented. The case study concerns the following parties:

Case company, which needed a CRM system in use for the global sales team.

The case company is an anonymous manufacturing B2B SME. This study does

not concern the industry, instead, it focuses on how to manage change related to

CRM implementation. Therefore more specific details of the case company’s

name or industry are not relevant in this context.

CRM team, which included four management-level employees of the case com-

pany together with the researcher. The CRM team set the objectives and require-

ments for the needed CRM system and during the team meetings, the starting

point for the development work was specified. The CRM team meetings are doc-

umented as minutes of meetings by the researcher.

Global sales team, which includes eight sales professionals in Europe, Asia and

the USA. The team is managed by the CEO. The group interview questions are

presented in Appendix 1.

Interviewees, three employees of the case company working in different business

units of the organization, interviewed with open-ended questions in terms of peo-

ple, process and technology in the case company. The people, process and tech-

nology component interview questions are presented in Appendices 2-4.

3.1 Results of the CRM team meetings

The CRM team gathered seven times during spring 2019 and the aim of the meet-

ings was to set a framework for the CRM system selection, define the current

situation of the way the team executes their work and to which processes the

37

implementation should affect and finally to define the objectives and requirements

for the system to be selected.

The comparison work for the suitable CRM system started with the situation anal-

ysis with the CRM team. The team set up a budget that was the most critical

aspect to be taken into account when selecting the systems for comparison. The

main features for the system were:

Tool for sales team’s work on a daily basis globally

Outlook integration

Customer data – history details & sales document attachment options

Reporting and activity follow-up tools for management

Convertible and expandable for field service needs

For IT and data security there were requirements set as well:

Security objectives

Cloud / server / mobile access

GDPR

Support & updates

Training

Integration with other systems

Substitution – less is more

The Great Firewall of China

Before the actual implementation project, the needed information together with

the available data sources needed to be listed. As CRM system’s foundation is

based on customer-related data, the listing for the needed information was:

Customer (company) name

Contact name

Address details

Contact e-mail

Contact phone number

38

Industry & type of company

Sales for current fiscal year

There were eight different systems selected for the comparison according to the

mutually agreed requirements. The compared systems were examined in terms

of four aspects: functions in sales and service and the focus on prospects or ex-

isting customers. The eight candidates were grouped by the size and type of the

company and they were located to a map in accordance with the aspects. The

following figure 10 the candidates map, shows the candidates and their placing

in respect to the dimensions of sales-service and prospects-customers.

FIGURE 10. Compared CRM System Candidates Map.

During the comparison work, the functionalities were compared after the require-

ments and the findings were listed to the following table 2.

39

TABLE 2. CRM System Candidates Comparison Table.

After comparing all of the eight systems and having demo environments for six of

them the final comparison was done between two of the most suitable candidates.

The CRM team gathered for demo meetings with the system supplier and con-

sultant and during the meetings, the requirements were discussed in detail. Fi-

nally, the case company selected Zoho CRM to be the best choice for their needs.

3.2 Results of the sales team interview

The global sales team group interview included questions related to the first im-

pressions of the upcoming CRM system implementation together with previous

experience of using such tools.

Most of the members of the global sales team had had no previous experience

of using a CRM tool. The group’s opinion was that the system would be beneficial

in improving the information-sharing regarding the activities done with the cus-

tomers. Also, the benefits were seen in decreasing locations where customer-

related information was currently kept. The challenges of the system were said

to be in the level of training and the time given to adopting new ways of work. The

group also mentioned EU GDPR to one be of their worries related to system us-

age. For overcoming the challenges the team wished for clear instructions, suffi-

cient training, and support for the usage.

40

3.3 Results of the one-to-one interviews

The interviews regarding the people, process and technology components

started with an introduction to the subject and each of the interviews included the

same first question regarding the organizational culture of the case company. The

followed questions were different in terms of the component which the interview

was about to examine.

The organizational culture was placed on the market section in the Competing

Values Model (Cameron & Quinn, chapter 3, 2011) by two out of three interview-

ees. The organizational culture was defined as flexible and improved with open-

ness in recent years. The ability to change was seen to be on a good level, on

the other hand, the culture was stated to be stuck to the ways things have been

always done. The challenges within the organization was said to be different

groups that an international company has, which affect cooperation and commu-

nication. The lack of control was mentioned by each of the interviewees.

People of the company were seen as the main asset and the company has sev-

eral long-term employments. The know-how of especially those employees is ir-

replaceable, however, the long-term experience might affect the ability to change.

The interviewee of the people component underlined the reasoning behind the

change that would help to overcome the change resistance. Open communica-

tion and positive feedback would also be beneficial. The motivation to the work

was said to be a critical aspect of the change resistance as well – the readily

motivated people are usually the ones with an easier approach towards change.

The personalities should not be too much emphasized in the context of organiza-

tional change. The different locations globally should be considered carefully be-

cause of the cultural differences and distance factors. Especially in global change

management, top-level executive support was seen important. Communication

and informational flow should be at a very good level in order to succeed in im-

plementing change internationally. For the continuous change, the new ways

should be documented as processes, the communication should be improved

and the executive support to be solid.

41

The customer-related processes of the case company are sales, projects and

customer care. According to the interviewee of the process component each of

the processes has clear ownerships, the processes are documented and the

practices are clear throughout the organization. The processes have their own

KPI-metrics that are frequently followed by the management group. The pro-

cesses need improvement in terms of communication, resourcing and schedul-

ing. The interviewee mentioned the shared informational channel for the pro-

cesses that could be beneficial in improving the collaboration. Also, the lessons

learned practices should be actively in use in order to improve both continuous

development and customer experience.

The case company has two systems including customer-related information in

use: ERP and service tool. Additionally, the company uses lead feeder and mass

mailing tools. The systems in question are not related to each other. According

to the interviewee of the technology component, the data for the CRM system

would be approximately 1/3 from structured sources and 2/3 from unstructured

sources. The information needed for different types of CRM would be received

through analytics and strategically the information that CRM system produces

was seen to be beneficial. The challenges with data gathering were mentioned to

be the “dirty” data and data cleansing, wrong information and the several different

places where the data should be collected. The limited resources in terms of time

and personnel availability was seen as an issue. The continuous tasks should

include data cleansing, monitoring the data quality and the security questions re-

lated to personal data. Regarding the selected system the interviewee considered

it to be beneficial for the sales team use but for the service use, the system didn’t

appear to include the needed functions. The software was mentioned to be up-

to-date and it overall appears to be easy to approach. The user resistance might

be a challenge and for overcoming the resistance the importance of the executive

support was mentioned by the interviewee.

42

4 DISCUSSION

4.1 Getting people on board

The need for the CRM project was originated with the management of the case

company and especially with the CEO. Therefore the executive support for the

project has been in present from the beginning of the process. At the beginning

of the development work, the CRM system agreed to be firstly a tool to help the

global sales team in their work. The status quo was that the team gathered their

customer-related information and their sales deals into several Excel-files and

personal notes. The informational search was time-consuming and a holistic 360

view of a customer was nowhere to be found at first sight. Also, forecasting the

sales and the needs of resources for manufacturing the machines was inaccurate

both in terms of time and money.

The global sales team consists of eight sales professionals located in Asia, Eu-

rope and the USA. The challenge with the people component is the different rou-

tines and ways to communicate. The most time-consuming task before the CRM

system could be in full use considered to be gathering all the customer-related

data from each of the sales team member’s personal files and this was thought

to be challenging.

The sales team group interview resulted in mutual findings as discussed during

the CRM team meetings. The interviewees told that the customer-related infor-

mation was in several different files and this had been seen as an issue related

to the daily work of the team members. The company is also having globally op-

erating customers and the big challenge is that there is no transparency of the

actions done in different locations. Lack of information is an issue that may lead

to conflicting agreements and the interviewees agreed the CRM system would be

a beneficial solution to the status quo.

The challenges regarding the system itself were stated to be a lack of support

and training. The interviewees wished there to be enough time for adopting new

ways to work. The worries also concerned the European General Data Protection

43

Regulation (EU GDPR 2016/679) that has been applicable since May 2018 (In-

tersoft Consulting, 2018). The team wished for clear instructions for how to pro-

cess the customer-related personal data in the new CRM system.

Most of the interviewees had had no previous experience in using a CRM system

– only one out of 13 interviewees had used such a system before. However, the

general opinion of the upcoming new system was positive and the team agreed

that if the training and time for adopting were sufficient the use of the system

would turn out to be beneficial eventually.

According to the interviewee of the technology component, the resistance by the

end users and on the other hand adopting the new ways to work will be a possible

challenge in the future and the top-executive support is essential in succeeding

in the change projects such as system implementations. Additionally to the inter-

viewee of the people component stated that the key to success in implementing

change is to highlight the reasoning behind the need for a change. Different per-

sonalities may react to the change differently but that shouldn’t be taken too much

into account. The motivated ones with an understanding of a general view of the

change are the ones who are easiest to get on board to the change. Overall rush

and lack of motivation are the reasons why people usually resist change, but par-

ticipative and informative communication usually helps to overcome the re-

sistance.

4.1.1 The cultural aspect

The organizational culture affects how the change is accepted as a whole in an

organization. The interviews regarding the people, process and technology com-

ponents in the case company started with the same question of how the inter-

viewees experienced the organizational culture in question.

The interviewees quite consistently placed the case company to the market sec-

tion after The Competing Values Model of organizational culture (Cameron &

Quinn, chapter 3, 2011). There was a slight dispersion in how the interviewees

experienced the level of hierarchy in the company. Two out of three considered

44

the lack of control to affect the total performance of the company but simultane-

ously thought the organization to be flexible and able to change. The openness

between the people and processes had been a challenge in the past but it was

considered to have improvements in recent years. The people were however

stated to be an asset for the company. There are many employees with a long

career in the company and the know-how of those people were seen irreplacea-

ble. However the organizational structure was stated to be traditional and com-

plex, and the long tradition of doing things one particular way would affect how

the change would be accepted as a whole.

Understanding the environment where the change is planned to be executed is

vital in terms of the success of the project. The sales team of the case company

is divided into different corners of the globe and due that the distance factor is

one part of the implementation process to be considered. According to the inter-

viewee of the people component, the top-level executive support is especially

important when implementing change across the borders. The general view of

the change should be put into practice by the management and the change

should be organized from the top as well. The informational flow and good com-

munication should be kept on the top of the priority list when conducting change.

4.2 Establishing the Processes

The case company have specifically three key processes with customer interface:

Sales, Projects and Customer Care. The following figure 11 shows the processes

and their ownerships and metrics to manage the process performance.

45

FIGURE 11. Key customer interface processes and their ownership and metrics

in the case company.

According to the interviewee of the process component, the processes have sev-

eral different KPI’s to measure the performance, and the most commonly used is

customer satisfaction. The KPI’s are studied in the management group that

makes reflections and bookings to the minutes.

The processes currently have needs for improvement in terms of resourcing and

scheduling. The processes are mutually executed and the routines are clear irre-

spective of the location, but the cross-process collaboration is lacking a shared

feedback channel, where the information sharing would be made approachable.

The interviewee also stated the need for a lessons learned –practice, which would

be an insightful source of information for process improvement and customer in-

terfaced personnel.

With the CRM team, the CRM implementation was agreed to be started with the

sales process. As one of the possible pitfalls of the CRM projects is starting the

project with too big of a target (King, 2003), narrowing and starting small is ben-

eficial. However, the team agreed that in future the CRM implementation should

be focused on customer care as well to gain a full 360 view of the customers. The

lifecycle of the manufactured machines can be more than 20 years which directly

46

affects the customer lifecycle and customer experience. Therefore the service

and after sales functions are essential in collecting the data for the CRM system.

4.2.1 Sales

The sales process in the case company has been recorded and is managed by

the CEO. The sales cycle varies significantly depending on the customer type

and segment, as well as the product in question. In the sales process, the cus-

tomer’s needs and expectations are carefully considered. The case company

manufactures machines for customer’s production which in practice means that

the end product is always one of a kind and needs thorough specification. The

salesperson is the key contact towards the customer during the sales cycle.

The challenge within the sales process is the limited ways to communicate across

the processes, which challenges the forecasting of needed time and resources in

production and the accuracy of the sales budgeting. The status quo of the tools

in use is that in addition to the personal files each salesperson has for document-

ing sales activities, the ways to communicate customer-related matters are the

phone, e-mail and shared server files.

4.2.2 Projects

The process manager of the projects is Business Unit Director. The project starts

when the project number is opened in the ERP system. By that time the contract

between the company and the customer is written. The salesperson provides the

sales specific details to the assigned project manager who is in charge until the

project is closed, that is to say, the machine has been installed and accepted.

During the projects, the project manager is the key contact towards the customer,

but depending on the customer the salesperson might be actively involved in the

communication as well. The project manager is in response to reporting project

status every week to the customer as well as to the salesperson. Despite the fact,

shared information and collaboration between sales and projects are sometimes

time-consuming and according to the interviewee of the process component, a

47

feedback tool for sales and project personnel use could be a beneficial solution

for the matter.

4.2.3 Customer Care

Customer Care in the case company contains a warranty period and after sales

services, such as spare part sales and maintenance and repair service. Each part

of the process has been recorded and is managed by the Business Unit Director.

Customer Care is the longest process in the company in respect of the customer

lifecycle. The customer may contact several different Customer Care persons de-

pending on the service need in question. The communication between the case

company and the customer is mainly done by phone and e-mail, and the trans-

actions are recorded on ERP.

The case company is also having a service tool in use that combines serial num-

ber information to customer details. The tool is mainly used for service functions

and field service resourcing as the tool collects data regarding the service done

for the machines in serial number level as well as produces work orders and ser-

vice reports.

The service tool mainly handles the same information as the upcoming CRM tool

and with the CRM team, the further development project in combining the two

tools was seen important. Also, the sales team would benefit from a complete

360 view of a customer, in addition to sales activities the after sales touchpoints

would be recorded and visible for all in one place.

4.3 Focus on Technology

The CRM objectives and requirements in the case company were defined in the

CRM team meetings and after the minutes of the meetings, the results have been

gathered to the following figure 12, inspired by Oksanen (77, 2010).

48

FIGURE 12. The Process for Specifying CRM Objectives and Requirements in

the case company.

According to the interviewee of the technology component, the selected system

met the needs of the sales team. The design of the software was considered to

be up-to-date and the features seemed versatile. The interviewee considered

Zoho CRM to be approachable by the user’s point of view and overall the system

build-up to be relatively easy due to off-the-shelve solution. For the service needs

the interviewee was doubtful as the demo system didn’t present the needed func-

tions.

4.3.1 Preparing for the system implementation

As a structured data source, the case company is having ERP, PLM and service

tools in active use and all of the three store customer-related data for different

purposes. ERP is the customer master with invoicing and delivery addresses and

produces data related to projects and transactions overall. PLM is the serial num-

ber master that among many other things combines machine main assembly to

customer name and project number. The PLM system has only recently started

to gather structured customer-related information. The service tool handles the

serial numbers in respect of customer details and service history and includes

contact persons to the customer details as well. In the following figure 13 the

customer-related systems are shown.

49

FIGURE 13. Customer-related systems in the case company.

The sales team is also using different kinds of Excel-books to forecast the sales

and to keep a track of the sales pipeline on a monthly basis. The CEO follows the

most probable sales in another Excel-book that combines the team sales into one

view. Additionally, many of the team members have personal customer-related

unstructured databases.

According to the interviewee of the technology component the company is, in

addition, having lead feeder and mass marketing tools in use. Those particular

tools include data related to e-mail addresses and currently are not particularly

monitored. The interviewee estimated that the amount of data that would possibly

be gathered from the structured system sources was 1/3, and the balance 2/3

from a variety of unstructured sources.

The major issues with data collection and management according to the inter-

viewee was the data cleansing and the sources for the needed data. The limited

resources in time and personnel manner was also a challenge to be considered.

In the future, there should be a plan for updating and managing the data overall

and data quality management should be documented as a process. The security

matters related to the data stored in the system and how the personal information

is erased should be considered as well.

50

From the existing systems, the customer company details were collected from

the ERP system and the exported listing was cleaned from the duplicates and

other anomalies. However most of the customer-related contact information

needed to be collected from the sales team members’ files and phone books. The

data collection was done with a pre-defined Excel-book that related the customer

company details to contact information with an identification code. The collected

information was imported to the CRM system that combined the information to

both the company and the contact view.

For the sales pipeline, the deals were collected from both personal and team

sales forecasting Excel-books from the current fiscal year. The deals were allo-

cated to the customer companies with the same identification code as with the

contacts. Once the deals were imported to Zoho CRM the complete view of a

customer included company and contact details, closed and ongoing deals, ma-

chine types related to the deals and project numbers related to the closed-won

deals.

The implementation project kick-off meeting was at the end of September 2019

and by the end of November, after the system end-user training, the CRM system

was ready to be actively in use by the sales team. During the system implemen-

tation project, the most time-consuming task was undoubtedly the data gathering

and cleansing, which was done by the employees of the case company. For the

external expert, the system build-up practically meant system modification and

report creation as well as finalizing and importing the collected data. The CRM

system implementation project stayed in the frames of both time and budget.

51

5 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this thesis was to receive a holistic view of Customer Relationship

Management and to understand what implementing CRM in an organization com-

pletely mean. This research especially concentrated on three core components

in CRM implementation: people, process and technology and how those three

components should be taken into account to succeed in the process. The re-

search was done as a case study in a medium-sized manufacturing company in

Finland in 2019. The data was collected by examining the starting point and

needed changes in CRM team meetings, interviewing three employees of the

case company regarding the components and observing the activities related to

the topic. Based on the empirical data collected I found that in the successful

implementation of CRM, people need to get on board to change, processes

should have cross-process collaboration and technology should be approachable

and data coherent.

The findings were mainly in line with the CRM literature, as Goldenberg (2008),

Chen & Popovich (2003) and Wagner & Zubey (2007) being the background of

the study. Every organization has its own culture, ways to execute processes and

an existing IT infrastructure to be taken into account. When implementing CRM it

is important to understand the phenomenon and to mirror it to a situation in ques-

tion.

People of the organization is the key asset to every business activity. As stated

by many authors of CRM literature, top-level executive support is seen as one of

the most important things to be considered when implementing CRM and change

related to it in an organization. People also need training and clearly defined

roles. The interviewees mentioned the same during the interviews. The change

should be led from the top to put it into practice, especially in an international

environment. People need to be continuously informed of the need behind the

change. CRM implementation affects the way people have used to do their work

and adopting the new activities and tools takes time. For the training, there should

be enough information and resources given to the employees.

52

The process component needs cross-process collaboration and putting the cus-

tomer to the very centre of every activity. The collaboration and shared infor-

mation was also mentioned in both interviews and while observing. The chal-

lenges within the processes also affect people who execute them. Implementing

CRM in an organization means that the existing processes need to be valued and

restructured to be more customer-centric. This means the change in both organ-

izational culture and in general view of how the processes should be carried out.

To improve the cross-process collaboration, the related functions and especially

people involved should be overheard. The change in the processes should be led

from the top and the vision to be clear to all in the organization. As the change is

always a continuous process, it should be monitored and analysed by the top

management. If the processes are inefficiently working the CRM systems are not

capable of fixing them. Therefore before implementing an actual system the cur-

rent situation with the processes should be evaluated and activities changed if

needed.

For the technology component, the companies should first understand the key

issue behind many failed CRM implementation: it is not about the system. The

system is an enabler for the customer-centric business strategy that is put into

practice to the customer-interface processes by people of the company. The sys-

tem helps employees to do their daily work, but the companies can execute cus-

tomer-centricity without a CRM system. However, to see the complete 360 view

of a customer the systems provide useful tools and instead of having all the in-

formation in several different places it is both time and money-saving to have

such a system. Before selecting a system the companies need to define the ob-

jectives and requirements to have a CRM frame. Then the existing IT infrastruc-

ture and different data sources need to be carefully considered. Customer-related

data is the foundation for every CRM system and going through the old databases

is time-consuming. By doing the data cleansing and integration too quickly and

without completeness the CRM system will provide “dirty” data in future use which

eventually leads to frustration among the user group as well as customers who

get service related to the wrong information.

53

5.1 Recommendations for future studies and improvements

Implementing CRM in an organization is not a one-time action and the change

takes time before completely adopted. Especially in companies with international

functions the change needs monitoring and management. As every organization

is different, the implementation of CRM means different things as well, but gen-

erally speaking, every organization should put time and resources to evaluating

the starting point, listing the needed changes and monitoring the actions too.

For future study in this particular case, it would be interesting to examine how the

implementation succeeded over time. As this study ends when the CRM system

was about to be actively in use by the end-users, the future study would start with

evaluating the actual level of use of the system together with overall effects to the

business activities. This study would be done by interviewing the end-users about

the functions, ease of use, overall benefits to the daily work and so on. Also, the

data for the level of use would be gathered from the CRM system itself.

For the case company, the recommendation for further improvement is to con-

tinue with building the processes and the CRM system to be more customer-

centric. The customer lifecycle includes a variety of activities with the company

and selling a machine is only the beginning of a long relationship with the cus-

tomer. Collaboration with the sales, projects and customer care would be benefi-

cial to both the company and the customer. Different processes would benefit

from the information received from the activities done in different parts of the or-

ganization with the customer in question, on the other hand, the customers would

benefit from deeper knowledge the company has of them. Overall keeping the

old customers and building long relationships with them is more affordable than

trying to win new customers. Cross-selling and up-selling the company’s services

can be improved only by shared information and functioning collaboration, and to

succeed in cross-process collaboration and customer-centricity, the vision and

the needed actions should be continuously informed across the organization.

54

5.2 Personal reflections

The process of this research has been long and educational. At the beginning of

the project, the goal was unclear, as firstly the objective was to compare different

systems and the further the project went, the goal changed to have the system

actually in use as well. However implementing CRM doesn’t mean only system

implementation, instead, it is understanding the general view of how the cus-

tomer-centric approach affects the whole organization in terms of both people

and processes.

Gaining the complete picture of the components involved in the implementation

process required a lot of time, hands-on work and discussion with people in dif-

ferent parts of the organization. Sometimes the need to raise the issues on the

topic of the discussions felt frustrating to both the researcher and the participa-

tors. However, to improve the current ways to work there need to be openness

from either party. Personally, the process has brought many positive things and

as I continue with developing the CRM system as my daily work, due to this re-

search I have gained a deeper knowledge of the overall functions related to cus-

tomer-related actions in the company.

5.3 Limitations

This research is limited to study the needed actions and the overall view of func-

tionalities involved before and during the implementation project of CRM tool in

the case company and therefore can’t be generalized to other CRM implementa-

tions. The case company is a medium-sized manufacturing company doing busi-

ness-to-business (B2B) sales globally for a very specific customer base. The

company’s needs for a CRM system were unique due to the size of the company,

the industry in question, the global sales team and limited resources. Therefore

the results of similar research in another company and industry would be differ-

ent.

55

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1. The Global Sales Team Group Interview Questions 1 (1)

1. Previous experiences of CRM tools?

2. Which tools exactly?

3. First impressions of the benefits of such tools?

4. What could be the challenges in using such tools?

5. What could help overcome those challenges?

6. How does the customer benefit from CRM tool implementation?

7. What could be the challenges from the customer’s point of view?

58

Appendix 2. PEOPLE – Interview Questions 1 (1)

1. Organizational Culture

a. How would you describe the organizational culture of the company?

2. Organization & People

a. What is the driving force to motivate people towards change in their work

especially in this company?

b. What would be the motivating actions needed to get people involved?

3. Personalities

a. How would you describe the personality factor in change engagement?

b. What would be the easiest kind of character to get positively involved to

change?

c. What would be the most likely character to resist the change?

d. What could be help overcome possible resistance to change?

4. Culture & Distance

a. How would you describe change management in global organization?

b. What would be challenging in global change management?

5. Continuum of the Change

a. What are the ways to manage continuous change?

b. What would help track possible resistance to change in the future?

59

Appendix 3. PROCESS – Interview Questions 1 (1)

1. Organizational Culture

a. How would you describe the organizational culture of the company?

2. Processes & Customers

a. What would be the key processes in the customer interface?

b. How would you describe the functionality of the processes?

c. Are there clear gaps between the process functions?

d. How could the processes be improved?

3. Process Functionality

a. How would you describe the ownerships of each process?

b. Are the process practices consistent throughout the organization? Are

there clear differences?

c. Are the critical interfaces between both internal, external and customer

groups functional?

d. What could be improved?

e. Are there stated metrics for each process performance from both company

and customer point of view?

60

Appendix 4. TECHNOLOGY – Interview Questions 1 (1)

1. Organizational Culture

a. How would you describe the organizational culture of the company?

2. Customer-related databases

a. How many customer-related databases there are in this company?

b. How are the different databases related?

c. Comparing to structured data, what is the amount of unstructured data

sources that should be taken into account in CRM system implementa-

tion?

3. Information sources for each type of CRM

a. What could be the difference in information sources for each type of CRM

(strategic, operational, collaborative, analytical) to use?

4. Data collecting & management

a. What are the major issues in data collecting?

b. How could the quality of the data be ensured?

c. What would be the continuous tasks in data management?

5. Selected CRM system

a. From your point of view, how would you describe the system design of the

selected CRM software?

b. Is it logical and user-friendly?

c. Does it meet the company’s needs?

d. What issues there might arise during the implementation?